Ride the Lightning

Robot Helps Litigants in Beijing Court

October 16, 2017

China Daily reported on October 13^th that a robot named Xiaofa, who gives simple legal advice and guidance for litigants, had been introduced at Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court.

Xiaofa stands 1.46 meters tall and provides legal advice and guidance in a child's voice. "Xiaofa explains complicated legal terms in everyday language to help the public better understand legal definitions," said Du Xiangyang, founder and CEO of AEGIS Data, which designed Xiaofa. "We used a child's voice to ease the tense emotions of litigants who come here for help."

The robot can move its head and wave its hands as instructions show up on screen, and it can guide people to the exact service window for litigation services.

Over 40,000 litigation questions and 30,000 legal issues can be answered by the robot, according to the court. "Interaction between humans and machines has improved immensely," said Ma Laike, deputy head of Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court. "It will decrease the cost of litigation, save trial resources and improve the efficiency of justice."

In October 2016, China's first AI legal robot, Faxiaotao, was unveiled in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, attracting visitors from home and abroad. Faxiaotao helps people analyze the best way to resolve a dispute, and also assists them in selecting which attorneys are suitable to help with their case, according to the robot's designer, Itslaw, a company that combines internet technology with law.

As an example, if a company believes its advertisements or advertising slogans have been illegally copied by a competitor and would like to hire an attorney who is a specialist in that area of law, Faxiaotao will first recognize what kind of case it is and then analyze its database for lawyers who have dealt with similar disputes. More than 300,000 attorneys across the country were listed in the company's database last year. When a query is made it selects the best three options.

The Supreme People's Court has ordered Chinese courts at all levels to build technology-friendly systems for lawsuits and investigate the use of big data and AI to help judges and litigants search documents and resolve cases. An internal intelligent system covers 3,520 courts across the country, giving the courts access to a great deal of online data.

Xiaofa appears to be a great improvement over the old court kiosks of the U.S. Hope we're moving in the same direction!

E-mail: Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Information Security/Information Technology
https://www.senseient.com
https://twitter.com/sharonnelsonesq
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharondnelson
https://amazon.com/author/sharonnelson